Daniel Morehouseand the

Comet’s Tale

Charles NelsonDrake University

October 23, 2008

Daniel Morehouse and the Comet’s Tale

Daniel Morehouse (from the online exhibit)

Daniel Morehouse

Yerkes Observatory — www.saveyerkes.org

Daniel Morehouse

E. E. Barnard and the Bruce Photographic Telescope at Yerkes Observatory

Daniel Morehouse

An early picture of Comet Morehouse

Daniel Morehouse

Lick Observatory — www.ucolick.org, photo credit Laurie Hatch

Daniel Morehouse

Drake University Municipal Observatory (from the online exhibit)

Daniel Morehouse

With Chemistry Professor Rider and Eleanor Roosevelt, Drake University

Commencement 1936 (from the online exhibit)

Daniel Morehouse

Flammarion Woodcut — Camille Flammarion’s L’Atmosphere:Meteorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888)

Daniel Morehouse

Dr. Morehouse joking with poet Louis Untermeyer in 1940 (from the

online exhibit)

The Comet’s Tale

Donati’s Comet — Camille Flammarion, Popular Astronomi (1897)

The Comet’s Tale

Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings including Halley’sComet in 1066

The Comet’s Tale

The great comet of 1577 over Prague on November 12, engraving by JiriDaschitzky. (Photo from the collection of Don Yeomans, NASA/JPL.)

The Comet’s Tale

I came in with Halley’s Comet ... It is coming again ...and I expect to go out with it ... The Almighty has said,no doubt: ’Now here are these two unaccountable freaks;they came in together, they must go out together.’

Halley’s Comet 1910 in the New York Times and Mark Twain

(www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/)

The Comet’s Tale

Comet Morehouse Nov. 16 1908 — Sky and Telescope, Dec. 1959

The Comet’s Tale

Evolution of the tail of Comet Morehouse 9/30, 10/1, 10/2 1908

E.E. Barnard Yerkes Observatory

The Comet’s Tale

19

80

Ap

J.

..

24

1.

.8

20

N

Disconnection event Oct. 15, 1908 — Indiana University

Comets

Comets

Comets

Cometary Impacts

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 — Hubble Space Telescope

Cometary Impacts

Impacts of Comet SL 9 on Jupiter — Hubble Space Telescope

Cometary Impacts

Crater Chain on Callisto — NASA

Cometary Impacts

Taken from The Cosmic Perspective, Bennett et al. 2004

Cometary Impacts

The K-T Boundary and the Chixulub Crater — The Cosmic Perspective

Bennett et al. 2004

Space Science

Nucleus of Halley’s Comet from the Giotto, ESA

Space Science

Aerogel array and particles from the tail of Comet Wild 2, Stardust

Mission ESA/NASA

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

I Seyfert and starburst galaxies, quasars:

— collaboration with current students Jordan Mirocha, JulieLeifeld, Kory Kreimeyer.

— M• − σ relation.— Hubble Space Telescope spectra of NGC 1068, NGC 4151.— Star formation in interacting galaxies.— Quasar imaging and spectroscopy.

Current Astronomical Research at Drake

NGC 4151 and NGC 1068

Current Astronomical Work at Drake

[OIII] image of NGC 4151 with Hubble Space Telescope

Current Astronomical Work at Drake

Longslit spectrum of NGC 4151 with Hubble Space Telescope

Current Astronomical Work at Drake

Quasar PG 0804 and companion galaxy — Hubble Space Telescope

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

I Renovation: 1998 — 2002.

— new dome shutters.— dome reshaped back to round.— carpeting and central air.

I Efforts of community to save observatory.

— Madelyn Levitt: over $200,000 toward renovation.— Special acknowledgment to Dr. Tony Marston, Waveland

Neighborhood Assoc., Des Moines Astronomical Society.— Many others!!!

Drake University Municipal Observatory

Recent Comets

Comet Hale-Bopp over Boulder Colorado

Recent Comets

Comet McNaught 1/19/2007; Siding Spring; photo credit Robert McNaught

Daniel Morehouse and the Comet’s Tale

Comet Hale-Bopp Over Val Parola Pass , Dolomite Mountains, Italy

Credit: A. Dimai (Col Druscie Obs.), AAC